The Wallace Inquisition
by Wynn
Summary: Wallace knows something's going on with Veronica. He's just not sure what. Time to break out the Wallace Inquisition. Spoilers up to Weapons of Class Destruction.


Title: The Wallace Inquisition

Author: Wynn

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of _Veronica Mars_. They are owned by Rob Thomas, UPN, Warner Brothers, etc. and are used for non-profit, entertainment purposes only.

AN: More post-Weapons fic from me. I can't help it. So many things to love about that ep.

The Wallace Inquisition

By: Wynn

"Veronica?"

"Yeah?"

"Why is Logan Echolls staring at you like he's the fat kid and you're the cake?"

Wallace knew something was going on. It had taken him a while- five months, one week, and three days to be exact- but he'd finally grasped the basic non-verbal communication signals of one Veronica Mars. And right now he knew she was Thinking Deep Thoughts and Possibly Might Need to Talk about Them. Wallace knew this because 01) Veronica was quiet and that girl can talk up a hella storm when she's her normal cynically perky self; 02) she had that _Shaun of the Dead _creepy zombie look-right-through-you stare down pat; and 03) she kept fiddling with that silver necklace of hers, which she did whenever she thought of something unpleasant and/or troubling.

For most of the day, Wallace thought the cause of her Deep Thoughts might have been Duncan Kane's disappearance. But he'd casually mentioned something about Duncan to try to gauge her reaction ("So where do you think Duncan went?") and she didn't seem too troubled by her ex's mysterious disappearance ("Probably Mexico. I'll know for sure tomorrow.") So Wallace eliminated that from his list of probable Deep Thought causes.

Then he thought it might have been the whole 'her dad dating his mom' thing, but nothing had really changed there since Wallace pre-empted The Date for some serious angst time. Besides, if it _had_ been that whole dating thing, she would have told him about it. She _was_ the one who made Wallace promise for the sake of their newly declared B-F-no second F-ness to let her know if the dad-dating-mom thing bothered him anymore, so it was only fair that she stuck to her girly, secret sharing pact, too. So Wallace struck Parental Dating from his list.

And that's when he spotted Echolls. Or, more accurately, Echolls staring at Veronica except for whenever Veronica happened to glance over there at him. And there was only one reason why people did that Look-Look Away dance with one another- Something Significant had happened. Something to change the status quo and make people uncomfortable and contemplative.

Both of which Veronica was.

So Wallace took it upon himself to ask Veronica about Echolls. And in no way did it have to do with possibly teaming up with Weevil to smack that jackass' ass down if he had said one wrong word to Veronica. In no way.

"Wallace, what are you talking about? He's not staring at me."

"Not now. He looks away when you look at him."

Veronica blinked at that, and Wallace knew that meant she was surprised. Wallace also knew it took a whole hell of a lot to rattle that stone cold Mars poker face of hers, and his desire to beat down Echolls rose a little bit more.

The poker face returned and Veronica shrugged nonchalantly. "Maybe he's got an eye twitch."

"Yeah, and maybe you've got a truth twitch."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't pull the innocent card on me, Veronica. I've seen you use it too many times. It doesn't work. Something's going on. Did he say something to you? Do you need me to beat his punk ass down?"

At that, Veronica looked at him the same way she did pictures of small, baby animals. Wallace resisted the urge to roll his eyes (_such _a marshmallow) and said, "Well?"

"No. No beat down required. But thank you, Sir Galahad, for wanting to defend by my girlish honor with some good, old fashioned violence. Like I haven't had enough of that already."

"Say what?"

Now Veronica sighed and closed her eyes, and Wallace knew it was confession time. Opening her eyes, she looked at him and said, "Repeat after me. I, Wallace Fennel-"

A moment of silence passed in which Wallace gave Veronica the raised eyebrow of I Can't Believe You Just Did That, You Must Be Trippin'.

Veronica raised a brow back at him. "If you want to know, you'll repeat after me."

"Fine. Fine, I'll once again submit to your strange girly rituals. 'I, Wallace Fennel-'"

"Asked Veronica to tell me what she's about to tell-"

"'Asked Veronica to tell me what she's about to tell-'"

"And therefore cannot get mad at her if he doesn't like what he's about to hear."

"You do know that I'm trying to do _you_ a favor here by easing your troubled mind?" The other eyebrow went up. "Fine. 'And therefore cannot get mad at her if he doesn't like what he's about to hear.' Happy now?"

"I'm a big bundle of sunshine and joy."

"Yeah, sunshine and procrastinating joy."

Veronica sighed again. She glanced at Echolls (again) who looked away (again) and then she did something Wallace never thought her capable of doing: she found herself at a loss for words.

"Okay, so yesterday I… We. You see, he, um, and I. Well, we…"

At that moment the part of Wallace's stomach that women always refer to as the center of their woman's intuition but Wallace referred to as the center of his stomach grew a little bit colder- and a little more uneasy- as Veronica stammered and stuttered and played with her silver necklace. Because suddenly he knew what he hadn't known before and he wished desperately he could unlearn what he had just learned.

"Oh my god. You did it with Echolls!"

"What? No-"

"Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? It's _Echolls_! You once referred to him as Neptune's own 'psychotic jackass' and now you're _sleeping with him_?"

Veronica lunged forward and grabbed hold of Wallace's shirt. "Hello, Volume Control. Could you say that a little bit louder? I don't think everyone at Pan heard you."

"But you, you-"

"Wallace. Listen to me. I. Did. Not. Sleep. With. Logan. Okay?"

Wallace nodded. And it wasn't because he lacked the capacity to speak. He just felt like engaging in a little non-verbal communication of his own.

Veronica let go of his shirt and resumed her place on the opposite side of the lunch table. Logic and rational thought gradually returned to Wallace's brain and then she said, "We just kissed."

"You _what_?" Veronica narrowed her eyes at him. Wallace dropped his voice down to an indignant whisper and said, "You _kissed _him?"

Another glance and non-glance. "Yes."

"Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?"

"Haven't we already deja'd this vu?"

"No. Uh huh. You do not get to get out of this with a clever sarcastic quip. We are knee deep in the Wallace Inquisition right now and if you value our friendship like you say you do, you'll answer my questions."

"How many questions?"

"I don't know. As many as I want."

"Only if I get to ask you as many questions as I want in return. I mean, this _is_ Share Time. I'm sure you have some deep, dark secrets of your own you'd like to unburden from your troubled mind. Like your not-so-secret crush on Ms. Dent, for instance."

"You know, it's times like these when I wonder why on earth I keep hanging out with you."

"Because I'm witty and charming and practically perfect in every way?"

Wallace shook his head. It was his only defense against _that smile_, the smile that made all of Wallace's righteous indignation mysteriously melt away no matter how hard he tried to keep the fires of fury burning. He fought back a smile of his own and attempted to focus on the interrogation business at hand. "Five questions," he said.

"Two."

"Four."

"Do you really want to go for four? I can cover a lot of territory with four questions."

Wallace didn't doubt that for a second, so his mind divided into two very distinct camps: the side that wanted to get down to the root of whatever caused Veronica to lose her mind and kiss Echolls and the side that wanted to maintain some semblance of privacy and manhood against the prying junior P.I. A moment of contemplation passed and then he said, "All right. Three. But I get to ask mine first."

"Fine by me. Fire away, Mr. Inquisitor."

Three questions. Wallace only had three questions to ascertain the status of his best friend's sanity. He inspected Veronica for a few moments before his eyes slid over to Echolls. He _so_ didn't need to know the physical details of that particular close encounter, so the how of it didn't need to be questioned. Wallace needed to know the why.

"Okay. Question one: Why in the ever loving hell did you kiss Logan Echolls?"

"He rescued me from a potential kidnapper, and I wanted to say thank you."

"With your lips?"

"Is that question two?"

"No, it's a request for clarification. I mean, Veronica Mars _is_ smarter than me. I just want to make sure I understand what she's saying."

"Nice maneuvering there, Legal Eagle. Been watching some Law and Order re-runs lately?"

"No, I just know you. If you don't want to talk about something, you'll resort to vague sarcasm. And I _know_ you heard the part about no sarcastic quips during the Wallace Inquisition. So…"

Veronica sighed for a third time and closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she cast another glance at Echolls and said, "I don't know why. Not exactly. It just… seemed appropriate somehow. Given the circumstances."

"You mean with the kidnapping and the rescue?"

"Yeah."

Wallace nodded. He leaned back and rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he digested her response. She didn't know why she acted like a crazy person and kissed who she kissed, and until Veronica knew, asking more why questions would be pointless. So Wallace moved on from the why and onto the who.

"Okay, question two: Does this mean that you like Echolls?"

"I don't know what it means, Wallace."

"But do you still hate him?"

She stayed silent for a long time. Wallace could almost see the gears grinding in her head as she puzzled out her response. So he waited. And waited. And waited some more (_damn_, that girl could think.) And finally, she said, "I don't hate him. I don't think I have for a while now. But I don't know if this means that I likehim. I mean, I don't see moonlit walks on the beach or candlelit dinners on the horizon for us. It's just… complicated."

So she didn't know the why of it or much at all about the who, and Wallace only had one question left. The success of the whole inquisition rested on this one little question. One final question to determine exactly how crazy his best friend was.

But no pressure or anything.

"All right. All right, question three."

"Oh goody. I can't wait."

"I'd wait a minute before saying that if I were you. Now, question three. Again. If you, Veronica Mars, got the chance, would you kiss Logan Echolls again?"

The lunch bell rang, but Wallace and Veronica didn't move. Wallace couldn't move. Not until he got a response. Not until he knew whether his best friend was full fledged crazy or just slightly unhinged.

So Wallace looked at Veronica.

And Veronica looked back at him.

And then she said, "I… might."

And then _he _said, "Good to know."

And Wallace's world was once again flipped completely upside down by one Veronica Mars.

Wallace looked away from a frozen Veronica and found Echolls standing next to their table, eyes glued on Veronica, an inscrutable expression on his normally smirking face. And right at that moment Wallace knew without a shadow of a doubt three very different things: 01) Veronica was completely bat-shit insane and no matter how hard he tried, he would never, ever fully understand how her mind worked; 02) his interrogation techniques sucked; and 03) there were some things in this crazy world that he was just better off not knowing.

Echolls and Veronica?

"So…" Echolls said. "I'll see you. Later."

Veronica finally looked at Echolls. She did this sort of half-sigh, half-smile thing that made Wallace want to bang his head against the lunch table (repeatedly) and said, "Yeah. Later. We'll talk."

Was so one of them.


End file.
